Just a side note about Pichardo's posts about cashless DR.
Un Municipio Paisa es el primero en Colombia que ya no usa el dinero en efectivo.
These guys in Colombia supposedly stopped dealing in cash ... interesting ... I was there just yesterday and I saw cash everywhere and I paid everything with cash myself. So much for a cashless society. I guess it will be the same (story) in the DR. Just a news announcement for PR purposes and not really much more.
You can't remove cash all the sudden. Cash will continue to flow for as long as anybody is willing to take it and be able to transfer it into an electronic account.
The DR is doing just that via all gov accounts, including welfare and social security benefits.
Before we can implement e-pesos, we need to have the basic infrastructure to support it nationwide. Today we are working with the small merchants, following that with micro biz as well.
It's not that the DR will simply remove the pesos from circulation, it's that once the majority of merchants, including gov, utilities, private biz and individuals, etc, stop accepting cash, people will see no use in keeping cash in their pockets.
If a person is the victim of money related crimes today, like forced to take money out from an ATM, in e-pesos this would be impossible.
No more robberies when the motive was to obtain cash, hence no more violent crimes of the genre.
The peso and coins won't be put to death, they will simply reside in a secured place (all of it) managed by the CB. Banking will carry on like always. Only this time the actual currency never transfers from hand to hand. It simply sits where it sits and the banks report the transfers to the CB on a routine basis.
In the event of a breach/attack on our monetary system from the outside/war/etc... The CB sends the actual currency to each bank and the banks therefore to their clients on a case by case basis.
Even kids will be able to use this, as their school ID is their SS# (Cedula #), a kid below certain school age will not be able to carry out financial trades until it's deemed fit for it.
As I said before, all transfers will be taxed. Those done on merchant to merchant accounts (including importers) will see their accounts added a VAT where appropriate.
Transfer by parents to their direct kids are exempt of taxes, unless a certain amount is surpassed or age restrictions apply.
A sibling to sibling cash transfer is to be deemed as a personal loan and therefore taxed, which will create an enforceable loan contract on transfer acceptance.
This will be a tax revenue windfall for the DR. Tax evasion will be impossible.
Tourists and other non-residents, will be provided a temp ID # (Cedula #) which expires on midnight of the last day on their legal stay term. This temp and discardable card will be only good for limited uses outside their AI and hotels. AI and hotels will continue to accept Card Payments from tourists to their own accounts, limited to in-house billing of services and goods.
Like I detailed in another thread, the DR is coming up with our own card. Just like Visa, MC and others.
The banks are working together to come up with a strong card system, which will also have checks and balances to halt abuses or over-spending by card holders.
Like I said before, this requires that some steps first are fully implemented. Some of them are being done as we debate here.
Like the Amnesty and legalisation phase under way now.